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Possibility and playfulness: How USWNT's next generation is redefining itself

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Possibility and playfulness: How USWNT's next generation is redefining itself

For the first time in a long time, it feels like the U.S. women’s national team truly has a fresh slate.

With longtime veterans Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Becky Sauerbrunn not on the 2024 roster, and younger stars Jaedyn Shaw and Trinity Rodman preparing to make their Olympic debuts, there is a sense that this tournament is truly a new group of players.

“(We’re) respecting our history, but then also trying to write a new story for this team,” defender Naomi Girma said before the team’s Olympic send-off matches. “Going into this tournament… that’s something that we’re really working on and we’re being intentional about: ‘What are we going to bring with us, and what do we need to change moving forward?’ I think it’s important for any team and program do that to continue being successful.”

However, there’s plenty of continuity from the old guard. Crystal Dunn, Lindsey Horan, and Alyssa Naeher are only a few of the players who bring a thread of history and stability with them, reaching as far back as 2015, when Naeher was a backup goalkeeper at the World Cup. However, only seven of the players on the 2019 World Cup-winning roster are now at this Olympics in France. Without Morgan on the call sheet, there isn’t a remaining Olympic gold medalist.

It’s a good core group of experienced players to have while also leaving a lot of room for relatively younger players — something that was by design according to head coach Emma Hayes, who only joined the group officially in late May.

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“Looking through the cap accumulation of the team, there’s been a lack of development, of putting some of the less experienced players in positions where they can develop that experience,” Hayes said after unveiling her tournament roster. “I think it’s important that we have to do that to take the next step. So I’m not looking backwards.”

With a new vibe comes a new search for identity. This 2024 team cannot help but be aware of the fact that the United States, so used to a certain level of global dominance, has not won a major tournament since that heady 2019 run. There have only been two major tournaments since then, but the United States got eliminated by underdog rival Canada in the Tokyo Olympics, scrapping their way to a bronze medal against Australia three years ago. And in the 2023 World Cup, they eked out a round-of 16-appearance, only to crash out against Sweden on penalties.

“We’ve moved on from last summer,” Sophia Smith said from a media call in Marseille before facing Zambia in their opening match of Group B. “It’s a completely new environment and opportunity, a lot of new players. We just look forward. At this point, we take one game at a time, and with Emma coming in, we’ve learned a lot, we’ve grown a lot, and we’ve introduced a lot of new things that I think will help us have success in this tournament.”

This team is determined not to let the spectre of 2023 hang over them. It’s part of the paradox of any team history: you are inevitably shaped by past successes and failures, but you can’t be beholden to them. You have to learn from mistakes without dwelling on them.

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This new team — which includes eight out of 22 players who weren’t even born when the 99ers vaulted the U.S. women to legacy status — hasn’t yet settled into a definitive vibe, at least not publicly. It’s understandable that, as a group, they would still feel emotionally up in the air given they haven’t even had a firm hand at the helm until Hayes arrived in late May, and before that spent nine months with an interim head coach.

“The transition wasn’t, in many ways, the easiest,” said Dunn. “But I think the team has done such an incredible job of just not skipping a beat.

“Obviously, we stepped out of the World Cup not feeling too amazing about our performance but I think, at the end of the day, we knew that we have an incredible opportunity to regroup and get back to it.”


Dunn is one of the more veteran players ushering in the new era. (Photo by Howard Smith, Getty Images for USSF)

That doesn’t mean they lack leadership. Besides captain Horan, many players have cited Dunn, Girma, Tierna Davidson, Rose Lavelle, and Emily Sonnett as stepping up to provide guidance and support. And there are actually only four players on the core Olympic roster with no previous Olympic or senior World Cup experience: Korbin Albert, Sam Coffey, Jenna Nighswonger, and Shaw. Of the alternates, Hal Hershfelt, Croix Bethune, and Emily Sams are also new, but are expected to see less field time, while goalkeeper alternate Jane Campbell was in Tokyo, also as an alternate.

There is a sense that, of the newer players in the mix, this could be the tournament that begins to define the next core group of players; the start of the next era of USWNT superstars.

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Though Girma is only 24, she is already highly regarded as a next-in-line candidate for the captain’s armband amidst her stellar center-back play. Davidson, who might finally cement herself as Girma’s defensive partner if she can stay healthy, is only 25, while full-back Nighswonger is 23.

In attack, the U.S. has some of the most exciting names in global football, such as Rodman (22), Smith (23), and Mallory Swanson (26). Add in Shaw, at 19, and even Bethune at 23, and U.S. fans should be breaking down doors to watch these players compete together at the 2027 World Cup. And if 24-year-old midfield phenom Catarina Macario can get and stay healthy, the sky’s the limit under the right coach.

Compatibly blending older and newer players is never a given, but this current group seems to have done it through a mix of player- and staff-led communication. The word “fun” was on everyone’s lips when asked about what emotions were in the air and what social dynamics were starting to take hold with a different set of players. Sonnett, who has been in and out of the USWNT mix since 2015, called the team “kind of a silly group,” describing a dynamic with more room for play, like a round of Heads Up Seven Up because everyone was five minutes early to a team meeting.

“The team vibes have been really great,” said Dunn. “At the end of the day, we’re here to win soccer games, but we need to have fun doing it and that means creating that competitive environment that’s going to bring out the best of us and not just make us so uptight about making mistakes.”

The public pressure on the team to win in 2019 precluded a lot of that grace for mistakes. They were on a streak of high-profile World Cup successes, from challenging an ascendant Japan in the 2011 final to winning it all in what almost felt like a charmed run in 2015 in Canada. The pressure created a bubble of incredible focus, a sense of collective. Not that they were all buddy-buddy about it all the time, but everyone seemed to be on the same page about what they were doing and why.

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No room for screwups, especially while the team was fighting for equal pay and better treatment from U.S. Soccer. And there’s nothing like sweating in the labor action trenches next to someone, staring down the possibility of a lockout, to solidify camaraderie.


The 2019 World Cup winners also bonded over their fight for equal pay. (Photo by James Devaney, GC Images)

The 2019 squad also benefited from loud leadership, mostly driven by the outspoken Rapinoe but certainly shared amongst Morgan, Sauerbrunn, and other players such as Ali Krieger, Kelley O’Hara, and even the contrarian Carli Lloyd. This was a squad that banged a drum wherever they went — whether they meant to or not.

This new iteration is still figuring out which drum they want to bang and when. With the pay equity lawsuit well resolved at this point, they get to move other priorities to the top of the list. Winning, of course, but also growth, innovation, adaptation, figuring out what the new pace of global development is like, and even how they might get ahead of that pace.

Dunn pointed out that the way the team cycles in newer players has accelerated, something that the packed soccer calendar and increasingly early player development demand with increasing necessity.

“The biggest difference is, you kind of had to wait to get that first cap,” said Dunn, who made her first USWNT appearance in 2013. “That was the norm. Some of us were in camps for a full year before we got more than two caps and that was kind of our process. And I think now, you’re finding that you almost throw these kids into the fire and see if they can survive, and I think that that’s one way to do it as well.”

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Horan, whose leadership style involves one-on-one conversations, said the team will rely on their younger players, who were already rising to the occasion. “New players, young players, the confidence is outstanding,” she said. “I wish I had that when I was 18 coming into this team, so (I’m) proud of them.”

If the younger players have any nerves, they’re certainly not showing it. Part of it is probably getting plenty of club experience; Shaw, Rodman, and Bethune are all high-profile players who carry heavy tactical loads at their NWSL clubs. That’s good for Hayes, who has demonstrated a preference for fluid thinkers who can adapt positionally on the fly, able to press and defend out of several different formations over the course of a game.


Shaw and Rodman are also key pieces of their NWSL teams (Photo by Todd Kirkland, Getty Images)

But behind the tactics are the human connections on which trust rests. As Davidson put it in Colorado, “Having that feeling of someone having your back, I think, is so important in soccer, in a sport, especially when the game is getting tight. You turn to each other. You don’t turn to anybody else.”

Both the older and the younger players seem pleased that that trust is in place. “I think we’re doing such a good job at connecting off the field and just being together,” Rodman said. “It’s not so much isolation. Obviously, we all find that time to be by ourselves. But we’re having fun together. We’re having that human aspect of it as well, of hanging out and not talking about soccer, as hard as it is.”

“We are coming together more than I’ve experienced in my time on this team,” said Sam Coffey, who received her first cap in 2022. “We have a clear philosophy of what we’re trying to do, who we’re trying to be, who we want to be on and off the field. That culture is really being set and those points are being driven home a lot by Emma and her staff.”

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When asked to define that philosophy, Coffey demurred on the tactical side of it, but off the field ultimately boiled it down to “Putting the team before yourself.”

“It’s doing whatever it takes for the team to win,” Coffey said. “It is putting the team, the winning culture, the success of the group, before anything involving the individual, and I’m proud to play for a team like that. I want to be on the team like that.”

The team-first ethos isn’t a new one, but its implementation can be as varied as there are ways to score a goal. From the way players describe it, there is a renewed vigor in camp, a sense of possibility and playfulness. The previous team was an autumn season, still vibrant and bountiful but waning towards the end of a cycle. This team is the renewed spring, waiting to see what comes from the seeds they’ve planted, hoping for a glorious summer.

(Top photo: Stephen Nadler/Getty Images; Design: Dan Goldfarb)

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‘I don’t digest food properly now’: The all-consuming pressure of managing a football club

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‘I don’t digest food properly now’: The all-consuming pressure of managing a football club

Pep Guardiola’s list of symptoms is long and unsettling. He has trouble sleeping. He can only take light meals in the evening. On some days, he does not eat at all. He finds it difficult to read because his mind keeps wandering. He feels, at times, intensely lonely. Things can get so bad that they begin to take on a physical form: bouts of back pain, breakouts on his skin. 

They are not isolated to moments like the one in which the Manchester City manager finds himself trapped, when his team are locked in a tailspin he has spent the better part of two months trying and failing to halt. By his own admission, he is always like that. Guardiola cannot sleep, or eat, or relax even when things are going well at work.

Manel Estiarte, perhaps Guardiola’s most trusted confidant, used to call it the “Law of 32 minutes”. Estiarte had spent enough time with Guardiola to calculate precisely how long his friend might last talking about another subject — literally any other subject — before his mind wandered back to football. 

That image has long since been folded into Guardiola’s mythology. He is the obsessional genius, his brain forever fizzing and whirring, a synapse permanently set to fire. His teams at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and then City represent his ideas made flesh, given perfect form. His brilliance has been constrained only by the limits of his imagination.

The cost of that dedication, though, has been laid bare over the last couple of months. As City’s form has slumped, Guardiola has given at least two unusually bleak interviews: first to the Spanish chef Dani Garcia, and then to his former team-mate, and longstanding friend, Luca Toni on Prime Video Sport. He told the former of the “loneliness of the football manager”, and how he found that — in defeat — there is “no consolation” once “you close that bedroom door and turn off the light”. 

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To Toni, meanwhile, he detailed the impact on his health: the skin problem he has been dealing with for “two (or) three years”, the problems with sleeping and eating. “I don’t digest food properly now,” he said, as if the metabolic shift is permanent. Sometimes, he said, he “loses his mind”.


Guardiola during Manchester City’s 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace this month (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

That he was so matter-of-fact about it — that he could insist he was “fine” just a few days later — may well be because none of it is new, not really. He struggled to sleep in his final year at Barcelona. In 2019, when City beat Liverpool to the Premier League title, he had long since stopped eating on matchdays. He said in 2018 while speaking at the University of Liverpool that he could not read books to relax because “I start reading and before I know it I am reading about Jurgen Klopp”. 

It may also, though, be because it has become the standard reality of those in his profession. Management has always been stressful. Many of Guardiola’s most famous antecedents — Bill Shankly, Arrigo Sacchi — either resigned or retired because of the strain the job placed on them. The man he identified as the greatest opponent he had faced, Klopp, stepped away from Liverpool for similar reasons.

It has, too, always been a vocation largely reserved for the single-minded, the pathological, the fanatical. And yet even those who choose to do it, again and again, would acknowledge that it appears to be extremely bad for you.

Richie Wellens, the Leyton Orient manager, told The Athletic this year that he can no longer grow a beard because of the stress of the job; Nathan Jones, once of Stoke City and Southampton, used to bite his nails so feverishly that he drew blood. As far back as 2002, (vaguely unscientific) experiments showed that some managers were under such stress during games that they suffered irregular heartbeats.

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“I definitely didn’t feel healthy at the end of my time at Chelsea,” Emma Hayes, now in charge of the United States’ women’s team, said last month. “I don’t want to say it’s pressure. I just think it’s the stress, the toll it took on me.” 

It is tempting to say that is inevitable, given the scale of the football industry, the money at stake, the unwavering scrutiny of the media. And yet, in some senses, management should be less, rather than more, stressful now. 


Hayes walks away after an altercation with the then-Arsenal Women manager Jonas Eidevall in March (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Most clubs have stripped back the burden of the post: technical or sporting directors take care of recruitment; chief executives handle contract negotiations; whole departments exist to analyse games and coordinate scouting. Shankly could not call on a psychologist, a specialist set-piece coach, or a nutritionist.

Yet it appears to have made little effect; management has not become more manageable. Ange Postecoglou, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, might have been exaggerating a touch when he suggested it was the “hardest job in any walk of life”, but it was not difficult to follow his reasoning.

“You can say politics, but this is harder,” he said. “The tenure and longevity of this role now means you go into it and very few are going to come out without any scars.” Asked to compare it to being the prime minister of an actual country, he said: “How many times does he have an election? I have one every weekend, mate. We have an election and we either get voted in or out.”

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In part, that can be attributed to the fact that while football has delegated responsibility behind the scenes, it has not done so in front of the cameras. The manager, particularly in England, more often than not remains the only public face of the club. 

“They have to comment on everything,” Michael Caulfield, a sports psychologist who works with Brentford, among other clubs, told BBC Radio 5 Live last week. “From Covid to Brexit to anything you care to mention: potholes, traffic, the price of hamburgers. Football is not good at sharing that workload. It is too much for one person.” 


Brighton head coach Fabian Hurzeler at his unveiling in July (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)

That anachronism has practical benefits — as an executive at one club has noted, privately, it makes life easier if certain questions are asked of a manager who can legitimately say they do not know the answer — but it creates the impression that the absolute responsibility for the wellbeing of a club rests on one person’s shoulders.

But far more significant is the fact that football, essentially, actively discourages managers to switch off. Guardiola might be seen as an exception, but he is also presented as a model; the obsessiveness that has been central to his legend for the last decade and a half has created a blueprint for how a manager is supposed to be. 

It is telling, for example, that Fabian Hurzeler — the 31-year-old head coach at Brighton — does not watch television or movies but does read books about “mindset”.

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“What is the mindset from high-performance people? People like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg. I like to understand how they behave, how they get so successful,” he said this season. Fabian Hurzeler’s reading materials are his own business, but this does not sound like switching off.

Indeed, most Premier League managers struggle to describe how they relax. Many exercise, of course — a notable percentage are very fond of padel, with Hurzeler one of several lobbying his club to build a court at their training facility — but genuine outside interests appear to be scarce.

Nuno Espirito Santo likes to “go to the window and look at the River Trent”. The night before he was summarily dismissed by Wolves, Gary O’Neil had allotted time to finish watching the film Wonka with his children. He knew it was “important to switch the brain off”. But he also knew exactly how long he had left. “I will try to switch off for an hour and six minutes,” he said.


The River Trent running by Forest’s ground. Their manager Nuno finds solace in watching the river (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Caulfield described Thomas Frank, his head coach at Brentford, as being unusually well-balanced for a manager — he plays padel (obviously), he skis, he spends time at his house in Spain, he has friends who have nothing to do with football — but even he has admitted his “brain is thinking about the next game” in almost every waking moment during the season.

He sometimes, he said, watches interior design programs on television with his wife. But only because she “forces” him to do it. Roberto Martinez, now managing Portugal, told The Telegraph in 2015 that he had designed his living room so it could contain one sofa and two televisions: one for his wife to watch normal television, and the other for him to watch football matches.

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None of this, of course, is healthy. The League Managers Association, the umbrella body that lobbies on behalf of both current and former managers in England, has published a handbook to encourage its members to find some form of work-life balance; it is at pains to point out that they cannot function to their utmost if they are drained and fatigued.

“That is the biggest problem,” said Caulfield. “Football is exhausting. That culture of ‘be there seven days a week’ has to stop at some point. Managers have to manage their own energy as much as their players. We are not designed to work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, under that pressure and scrutiny.” 

Guardiola would, it seems, be proof of that. The symptoms of what it is to be a manager are worse now, of course. He always suffers more after defeats. But it is not so different when things are good; he has been dealing with them for years. “I think stopping would do me good,” he told Garcia, the chef, in one of those stark interviews.

He knows that, and yet he will not. He will, like so many of his peers, keep coming back for more.

(Top photos: Getty Images)

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Athletes on college football playoff teams are earning large amounts of NIL money

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Athletes on college football playoff teams are earning large amounts of NIL money

The original 12 college football playoff team rosters were worth more than most other teams across the country. Media and technology company On3 estimates the 12 rosters combined made up around $150 million.

“What’s happened over the years is more and more money has come into these universities,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said.

Tuberville, who is also a former college football coach, has legislation that aims to address what some argue is an unlevel playing field.

“The problem was, in 2021 the Supreme Court says, ‘OK, we see this lawsuit, and we agree with the athletes. They need to be able to make money off of name, image and likeness,’” Tuberville said. “It has gone downhill from there. And there were no rules put into it. It was just wild, wild West.”

HOW TRANSGENDERISM IN SPORTS SHIFTED THE 2024 ELECTION AND IGNITED A NATIONAL COUNTERCULTURE

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Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is a former college football coach. (Anna Moneymaker/File)

Schools where football players are earning large amounts of NIL money appear to be successful on the field. Most teams that qualified for the college football playoffs also had some of the highest valued rosters.

“There is a class within the class of schools across the country that have the best infrastructure, the best systems, the best fundraising, the best corporate deals involved,” said Rob Sine, CEO of Blueprint Sports, an agency that oversees several collectives or donor groups across the country. “They would build a collective, and they would pool a bunch of really wealthy people together and build a budget and help support their coach for the sport they like the most.”

Schools that took early advantage of forming collectives and those with an already large booster system were able to get ahead.

“Football really is the only sport that makes big money in intercollegiate athletics. Basketball’s next, maybe a little baseball,” Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl said. “The vast majority of the NIL money is and will be going to the sports that are making the money. And as a result, our Olympic sports are absolutely in jeopardy.”

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Bruce Pearl yells on court

Bruce Pearl (Andy Lyons/Getty Images/File)

The 2024 season featured even higher stakes with the first extended playoff season. A 13-member college football playoff selection committee ranks the top 25 teams. Twelve schools received playoff spots, but not all were among the top 12 ranked teams. The group granted automatic spots to the five conference championship game winners, which held the highest ranking, among the nine major conferences. Those included the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 10, the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference from the Power Four. Group of Five conferences were also eligible. Those include the American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West Conference and the Sun Belt Conference.

Power Four conference schools traditionally have larger revenue budgets and television viewership than other college athletic programs. A team from each of the Power Four conferences earned a playoff spot. Boise State of the Mountain West was the only team to qualify among the 62 schools across the Group of Five conferences. The team also has the highest valued roster in NIL money than any of the other 62 schools.

“Different programs that have risen up and have gone out there and made a big impact,” Sine said. “Right now, money is driving college athletics and schools are looking for, ‘Where can I have the best opportunity to grow.’”

OLYMPIC SNOWBOARDER SOPHIE HEDIGER, 26, DIES IN AVALANCHE IN SWITZERLAND

In the 2024 season, several teams changed conferences for access to more money and stronger competition. Southern Methodist University moved from the American to the ACC and ended up losing to Clemson in the conference championship game. Clemson has the most NIL money among ACC teams. Despite being ranked 16th, the team earned a playoff bid by winning the ACC championship game. The Tigers eventually lost in the first round of the playoffs to Texas. SMU also made the playoff bracket but lost in the first round to Penn State.

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It’s about opportunity. And you’re also starting to see there’s a lot of conversation about what could be a Super League or two. And you’re starting to see a lot of jockeying happening for, ‘Hey, I want to be there,’” Sine said.

Oklahoma and Texas moved to the SEC. Texas lost the championship game to Georgia but will play Big 12 champion Arizona State in the second round of the playoffs. SEC teams had some of the highest valued rosters. Georgia was among the teams with the most NIL money overall. Texas holds the most expensive roster and is also estimated to have one of the best recruiting classes for the 2025-2026 season.

Arizona State football players celebrate

Arizona State celebrates after defeating Iowa State (Jerome Miron-Imagn Images/File)

“We were late to the party and compensating our student athletes properly. We’re there now. It’s just that we’ve got to sort of find a way to make it work for everybody,” Pearl said. “I think we need some federal assistance so that each state is not doing their own thing, and we won’t have a true NCAA champion.”

Oregon won the Big Ten Championship game and went undefeated for the season. The Ducks were originally part of the Pac-12, which broke apart with teams joining the ACC, the Big 10 and the Big 12. Oregon will face another member of the Big Ten in the second round of the playoffs, the Ohio State Buckeyes. While Oregon has a better record, Ohio State topped the Big Ten in NIL money. 

Arizona State is another former member of the Pac-12. It switched to the Big 12 for the 2024-2025 season. The Sun Devils won the Big 12 Championship game and received an automatic bid to the playoffs. However, their roster was not the most expensive in the conference. Colorado players received the most money. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders is also estimated to be the highest-paid NIL athlete in the country. He is the son of Colorado head coach and former dual NFL-MLB athlete Deion Sanders.

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“There has been an elite crop of athletes since day one. They have always risen to the top and have always made the most money because they bring a lot more star power than necessarily the rest of the team does, or they spent a long time building their brand,” Sine said.

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Blueprint Sports oversees Colorado’s 5430 Alliance collective. While the team did not earn a playoff spot, high-caliber players are on the roster, including Sanders, who is projected to be a first-round draft pick. Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter also earned recognition and millions in NIL for playing nearly every snap for the team as a wide receiver on offense and cornerback on defense.

“There are the star-studded athletes that have agencies working behind them to do the big deals with them. There are the up-and-coming athletes, and then there are the athletes that are just, you know, happy to be making anything from an NIL standpoint,” Sine said.

Travis Hunter catches the ball

Colorado wide receiver Travis Hunter scores a touchdown during the first half against Central Florida on Sept. 28, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Collectives have helped some of the playoff schools sign major deals. Ohio State’s 1870 Society has a partnership with supermarket chain Giant Eagle. Nike co-founder Phil Knight launched Oregon’s Division Street Collective. Tennessee quarterback Nico lamaleava landed an $8 million deal from the Spyre Sports collective before ever signing with the Volunteers.

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“I think that where the red flag is popping up is there’s a lot of money being paid to high school seniors that are coming into college athletics that have never played a down or a minute of college sports before, and you have no idea what you’re going to get,” Sine said.

The Texas One Fund combined five separate NIL entities and is thought to be the wealthiest in the nation. It has provided quarterback Quinn Ewers with a private jet and every scholarship offensive lineman with $50,000 annually.

“What we want to do is just try to make sure that everybody has that opportunity to get whatever they can get. But when you take money, you’ve got to sign a contract, and then you’ve got to be committed to that contract,” Tuberville said. “I know for a fact that some universities, they bring Lamborghinis and Corvettes and put [them] out in front of their office building when they bring these recruits in. It is totally changed. It’s big money. It’s minor league sports, what it is now.”

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Q&A: Mina Kimes' 'Christmas gift' is talking NFL all day on Netflix — and hopefully no glitching

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Q&A: Mina Kimes' 'Christmas gift' is talking NFL all day on Netflix — and hopefully no glitching

Mina Kimes has a lot going on this week.

Like so many other people this time of the year, the analyst for ESPN’s “NFL Live” has been busy wrapping presents and preparing for the arrival of out-of-town guests for the holidays.

In addition to those typical holiday activities, however, Kimes also has to break down film and attend a Christmas Eve rehearsal ahead of her one-off gig as a studio analyst for the Kansas City Chiefs-Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans games streaming live Christmas Day on Netflix.

“Yeah it’s been pretty crazy,” Kimes said Monday during a phone interview. “I’m just excited. I usually just do a studio show during the week that I absolutely love, but there’s a level of energy that comes with doing television right before kickoff and also during the game and after. … Like, in real time, let’s see how Joey Porter Jr. or George Pickens or any of the injured players look, and their availability and that kind of thing.

“And that adds a different element to it that I’m really personally super excited about. But I just love talking ball on television and just to have the opportunity to do this in front of this many people is quite a Christmas gift.”

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The last sporting event streamed live on Netflix was a massive success — an estimated 108 million live viewers in around 65 million households worldwide tuned in Nov. 15 to watch the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight — but also a huge headache for many consumers, who complained on social media about buffering issues and losing the feed altogether.

Netflix told The Times on Monday that it learned from the struggles it faced during the Tyson-Paul live stream and has optimized its systems to better handle live events since then. Kimes is hopeful that all such issues have been resolved ahead of the two NFL games, both of which will be key to AFC playoff seedings and one of which (Ravens-Texans) will feature a halftime show by Beyoncé.

“The technological aspect of this is above my pay grade, but everybody seems pretty confident about it,” she said. “Obviously it’s gonna be a bajillion eyeballs on these games, so my hope is that on our end when we’re on everything’s seamless, not just from a tech and streaming standpoint but from a production standpoint. And so far it seems like it will be, just a lot of experienced folks working on this.”

Netflix’s first foray into NFL games will feature a slew of talent from various other platforms. Kimes will be on the Los Angeles studio show, along with anchor Kay Adams (FanDuel TV) and fellow analysts Manti Te’o (NFL Network), Robert Griffin III (formerly of ESPN) and Drew Brees (formerly of NBC Sports). A studio show from Pittsburgh will feature Laura Rutledge (ESPN) as anchor and Devin McCourty (NBC Sports) and Jason McCourty (CBS Sports and ESPN) as analysts.

“It’s kind of like a Pro Bowl of sorts,” Kimes said. “That sounds self aggrandizing, but I guess I mean so far as I get to work with a lot of people who I don’t usually get to work with, which is kind of cool. It’s a lot of folks from a lot of different networks and that is also something that is kind of like unique about this.”

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Here’s more from Kimes’ conversation with The Times.

(The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity)

How did this all come about for you?

I can’t remember when I first heard about the possibility — a few months ago or something? But whenever my agent told me about it I was really excited for a litany of reasons, one of which was just the opportunity to work on such massively significant games and obviously ones that are gonna have a lot of eyeballs. Really good games, too, by the way — which, I mean, good for Netflix but also great for me because it’s a lot more fun to talk about games like the ones we’re gonna be discussing on Christmas.

Was there any hesitation to do this during the holidays? I know you have a little one at home …

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Well, here’s the good news — he’s 14 months old, so I can just tell him Christmas is the next day and he won’t know the difference. I have family coming in actually today and even if I wasn’t on the show they would be watching it. They’re huge football fans. They would have Netflix on all day anyways, so I think they’re almost as excited by the idea of just sitting all day and watching me, probably more so than if I was spending time with them because they see a lot of me in person.

So your studio show is going to be on all day, before, during and after both games?

Yeah, that’s why everybody’s watching halftime, right? To watch our show. Like, ‘Come on, enough Beyonce. One song, let’s get back. I really gotta hear this analysis.’

This has been a busy month for you, after serving as a color commentator for “The Simpsons Funday Football” alternative broadcast of the Cincinnati Bengals-Dallas Cowboys game Dec. 9. How was that experience?

It was awesome. It was an absolute dream. I’m a crazy Simpsons fan and I think we realized early on — me, Drew [Carter] and Dan [Orlovsky] — just to lean all the way into all the Simpsons jokes and references. It seems like fans of the show really enjoyed that.

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You have made numerous appearances on ESPN’s “Around the Horn.” What was your reaction to learning that the show will be coming to an end next year?

That show has meant so much to my career. That’s how I really got my start in television at ESPN. I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing now if not for ‘Around the Horn.’ … So it really kind of made me reflect on I guess the role that the show has played [in] my career. I’m gonna miss doing it a lot because I’m an NFL analyst now, but for me it was one of those platforms [where] you could talk about other sports and topics and I always really, really enjoyed it. It’s a special show.

What are your predictions for the Christmas games?

It’s boring — I got both of the favorites winning, the Ravens and Chiefs. The Steelers’ defensive injuries are very concerning.

What about a Beyonce prediction? Any special guests you think might join her?

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I think you might see a special guest from Houston. Don’t know who that’s gonna be, but I predict that whatever it is, people will wish it was twice as long instead of having to listen to me talk.

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